Dr. Jane Anderson is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at New York University. Jane has a Ph.D. in Law from the Law School at University of New South Wales in Australia. Her work is focused on the philosophical and practical problems for intellectual property law and the protection of Indigenous/traditional knowledge resources and cultural heritage in support of Indigenous knowledge sovereignty. Jane has worked as an Expert Consultant for the World Intellectual Property Organization on a number of policy proposals for the protection of traditional knowledge and cultural expressions and since 2007 she has actively worked with and for Native American and First Nation communities to develop strategies and regain control and cultural authority of cultural heritage held within cultural institutions in the United States.

Her most recent project with Kim Christen is Local Contexts. Local Contexts (www.localcontexts.org) is an initiative to support Native, First Nations, Aboriginal, Metis, Inuit and Indigenous communities in the management of their intellectual property and cultural heritage specifically within the digital environment. Local Contexts provides legal, extra-legal, and educational strategies (including TK Labels) for navigating copyright law and the public domain status of this valuable cultural heritage. By providing strategic resources and practical solutions, Local Contexts and its partners are working towards a new paradigm of rights and responsibilities that recognizes the inherent sovereignty that Indigenous communities have over their cultural heritage.